Wednesday, November 22, 2017

Next Week in Tickets: Films playing Boston 22 November 2017 - 30 November 2017

Happy Thanksgiving! Enjoy a long weekend of movies as I shall.

A new Pixar movie is always good news (except when the guy at the top is the latest snagged in misconduct scandals), and Coco, their latest, is a spiffy-looking 3D adventure inspired by the Day of the Dead. It's at the Capitol (2D only), Fresh Pond (2D only), West Newton (2D only), Boston Common, Fenway, Assembly Row, Revere, and the SuperLux. If you like animation from a different legendary source, GKids's final Ghibli presentation plays over the weekend, with Howl's Moving Castle playing at Fenway and Revere on Sunday, Monday, and Wednesday (subtitled Monday, dubbed the other days). Fenway also has The Polar Express on Saturday afternoon.

There's also Roman J. Israel,Esq., with Denzel Washington as the title character, an attorney who goes from being idealistic to mercenary (and, presumably, back again), with Nightcrawler filmmaker Dan Gilroy writing and directing. It's at the Capitol, Fresh Pond, Boston Common, Fenway, Assembly Row, and Revere. There's also expansion for Lady Bird and Three Billboards, which gain screens at the The Somerville Theatre, The Lexington Venue, Fenway, and other spots.

Explosion plays Boston Common, their first Asian film in a while. It opens Friday and stars Duan Yihong as a demolitions expert investigating a suspicious explosion in a mine.

Over at Kendall Square, Kendall Square, they open The Man Who Invented Christmas on Wednesday, with Dan Stevens playing Charles Dickens during the period when he wrote A Christmas Carol and Christopher Plummer as Ebeneezer Scrooge. It also plays West Newton and Boston Common. On Friday, the Kendall gets The Breadwinner, an animated feature about an Afghan girl who disguises herself as a boy to earn money to support her family. It's notable for being from Cartoon Saloon, with director Nora Twomey having served as co-director on producer Tomm Moore's The Secret of Kells, which is a very nice pedigree to have.

The Museum of Science will add "Mysteries of China" to their line-up at the Omnimax theater starting on Friday.

It's Hanks-giving at The Brattle Theatre, a pun and series that the creative director admits he should have thought of long ago. It starts with a double feature of Splash (35mm) & Big on Wednesday and Thanksgiving, another of The Money Pit & The 'Burbs on Friday, Turner & Hooch (35mm) & Dragnet on Saturday, A League of Their Own & That Thing You Do! (35mm) on Sunday, Catch Me If You Can (35mm) on Monday, and a free "Elements of Cinema" screening of Toy Story before before Joe Versus the Volcano (35mm) on Tuesday. They're closed on Wednesday, but then one of the most delightfully offbeat recurring events - The International Pancake Film Festival - plays a special tenth-anniversary show on Thursday, with the usual free pancakes and video games.

At The Coolidge Corner Theatre, the After Midnite crew continues their tribute to Adrienne Barbeau with Two Evil Eyes on 35mm Friday night and The Convent on Saturday. They have a kids' show on Saturday morning in the form of Where the Wild Things Are, and then a Big Screen Classic of The Seventh Seal on Monday evening.

The Harvard Film Archive doesn't break for the holiday, wrapping up the William Wellman series with 35mm prints of A Star Is Born (Friday 7pm), Yellow Sky (Friday 9:30pm), The Track of the Cat (Saturday 7pm), Westward the Women (Saturday 9pm), Midnight Mary (Sunday 5pm), and Frisco Jenny (Sunday 7pm). Shuji Terayama's Video Letter finishes up his series on Monday, and there's also a special presentation at the Carpenter Center, Basma Alsharif: Drawing a line through the Ouroboros on Friday, with Ms. Alsharif giving background on the creation of her film Ouroboros before it screens in December.

The Museum of Fine Arts similarly finishes their November schedule with a number of films playing irregular schedules: Dawson City: Frozen Time (Friday), "No Maps on My Taps" & "About Tap" (Friday/Saturday/Sunday/Wednesday the 29th/Thursday the 30th), Marie Curie: The Courage of Knowledge (Friday/Saturday/Sunday), and The Teacher (Saturday/Sunday/Wednesday the 29th).

The Regent Theatre has a busy holiday weekend planned. Friday and Saturday have matinees double features of Kid Flix, programs of short films from the 2017 New York International Children's Film Fest. Those same days will also have a double feature of Saturday Night Fever & Dirty Dancing, while Monday features concert film Blue Wild Angel, featuring Jimi Hendrix at the Isle of Wight.

CinemaSalem will have documentary The Paris Opera in their 18-seat screening room starting from Friday.

Bright Lights returns after Thanksgiving break with director and Emerson alumnus Romana S. Diaz presenting Motherland on Tuesday the 28th and various artists in the Opertura collective there for "Weird Healing: The Animation of Opertura" on Thursday. Free in the screening room at the Paramount.

The Capitol has their monthly Throwback Thursday screening - Terms of Endearment - on the 30th.

Looking at Coco, The Breadwinner, Three Billboards, the League of Their Own/That Thing You Do! double feature, Explosion, Dawson City, the pancake movies, and probably even more. Good thing there's extra days off!